


a different music

by twistedly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: snapecase, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 08:33:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22493122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedly/pseuds/twistedly
Summary: Summary:He’s Severus the Grey, after all, and he’s never going to rise Gandalf-like from the ashes of his own inevitable destruction.A/N: Title from Richard Siken.Sure, it’s good to feel things, and if it hurts, we’re doing it/ to ourselves, or so the saying goes, but there should be/ a different music here.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin/Severus Snape
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	a different music

‘That the best you can do?’ Black snarls, his eyes heavy with arousal even in the dimness of the empty classroom. His knees are spread wide, one leg hitched up around Severus’ waist.

Severus twists another finger inside Black, muttering a wandless spell for more lubrication, rutting up against Black as he pins Black against the chalk-dusted blackboard.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t push your luck,’ he says, silently congratulating himself at how remarkably put-together he sounds. 

(It’s not easy to remain composed when confronted with Sirius Black’s gorgeously lust-filled face. Black loves to fuck and be fucked, loving everything, loving life, in a way Severus has never quite managed to. It’s one of the reasons he comes back again and again for this, to savour something forbidden, something longed for, that he can’t find anywhere else.)

‘Maybe I don’t need that much lube.’ Black squeezes Severus’ fingers painfully tight.

‘Pain slut,’ Severus says. (It’s a negotiated word, one that turns Black on. Severus uses it with a kind of pained gratification, almost as much an insult as it is a term designed for play. The games the three of them have devised to drive themselves to one sexual distraction after another could fill a whole guidebook on male homosexual relations.)

‘Don’t you know it.’ Black’s grin turns characteristically wolfish as he reaches up and buries claw-like fingers in Severus’ hair, dragging him in for a filthy, irresistible kiss.

They don’t start at the sound of the door opening and closing quietly behind them, knowing who it’ll be.

‘Started without me?’ Remus Lupin says. 

Severus hears the sound of Lupin’s old threadbare cloak rustling to the floor before there’s a line of warmth pressed up against his back, Lupin’s hot, wet mouth nuzzling at the back of Severus’ neck while his gentle hand pushes Severus’ hair out of the way.

(Lupin is almost always gentle, except when he’s being directed by Black. He’s molasses, sweet and resilient, almost someone Severus could bring himself to feel something for, if only he could believe that the emotion would be reciprocated.)

‘C’mon, Moony,’ Black pants against Severus’ cheek, squirming with impatience. ‘Snape’s kindly got me all ready for you.’

(They don’t call him _Snivellus_ when they’re like this. That’s reserved for public moments when they’re heroic Gryffindors and he’s the evil Slytherin they torment with practical jokes and humiliating names. Severus has never quite understood the logic of dividing every single person at the school into one of only four groups. Are people that easy to categorise?)

‘With pleasure.’ Lupin’s warm, rich voice sounds in Severus’ ear before he lets go of Severus and cups Black’s face.

Severus moves to the side to keep his fingers buried in Black’s clenching hole as the two lovers kiss messily. (It’s always the two lovers plus Severus—never three lovers, really.)

A minute later, Black’s bent over the teacher’s desk with Lupin buried inside him, his hands cupping Black’s hips as he moves.

‘You waiting for an invitation?’ Black looks up at Severus, shaking his shaggy dark hair out of his face, his fingers curling in pleasure where they’re pressed against the ancient wood of the desk.

Severus fists a hand in Black’s untameable hair and thrusts into his mouth.

—

In the morning, of course, everything is back to the way it always is in broad daylight. Trysts such as theirs are meant for the hidden, almost anonymous classrooms and empty corridors where the three of them meet during nights.

Evans and Potter are with his sex-mates (his not-lovers) at the Gryffindor table, all of them lingering after breakfast on a lazy Saturday morning. The teachers have left the staff table, so naturally, public displays of affection are rampant in the Great Hall. 

Sirius is draped over a half-amused, half-nervous Lupin’s lap, his lazy, sensual fingers tracing Lupin’s mouth. 

(Severus remembers those fingers in his hair, that mouth on his mouth. Black is always vibrant in his Black-ness, radiating sexuality as though it burns under his skin all the time, a defiant expression of absoluteness against anything he deems even remotely authoritarian. Lupin is delicately silver, like the metal that is poison to him, shimmering in the glow of Black’s obvious and honest affection, a moonlight-catching wolf who thrives and thrives under the limitless show of love that Black openly and exclusively reserves for him. Severus is the parenthetical grey that’s never quite there, the in-between liminal secret they keep, the shadowed crevice in which they sometimes disappear, only to emerge as two when it’s daylight, the third hidden away in their carefully-crafted monogamous closet. It’s a symphony for two, the tune of his entire being always cacophonous and disruptive in their scheme of things.) 

Potter is feeding Evans bits of toast.

(She’s always Evans to him now, never Lily. Lily was the friend from his childhood, the best one, the only one willing to look past his enforced strangeness and see something there to be valued, to be cherished. Every queer boy—queer in so, so many disparate ways—should have a friend like her to get them through the murky confusions of damaged childhoods. He’ll always love her for that. But now she’s Evans. Evans-the-Gryffindor, Evans-soon-to-be-Potter, for Potter proposed lavishly and publicly to her at the Winter Ball. She said yes.) 

Severus turns away from the nauseating display and goes back to his toast.

—

‘Severus! Severus, wait.’

He’s almost-but-not-quite late for class. It’s the last day of classes before winter break, but it still doesn’t hurt to be on time.

He stops and turns around, clutching his pile of books with one arm—his bag had mysteriously disappeared while he was in the boys’ room, probably another Marauders’ prank—and pushing his hair out of his eyes with his free hand.

‘The wedding’s right after graduation,’ Evans says, quiet. 

‘Congratulations,’ Severus says. 

‘I don’t—Severus, I don’t want things to end this way between us.’

‘There’s nothing to end.’

‘Severus, please.’ Her impatient hand grips the sleeve of his robes. ‘Don’t—don’t be difficult.’

‘What do you want?’ It’s as though he’s having this conversation from outside his body, observing it dispassionately. There are no words for the things he wants to say.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Not to me.’

‘I still want to be your friend.’

‘Even after—after what I said?’ The filthy name he’d called her, driven by rage at what he’d seen as her betrayal of their bond, has remained in his mouth, its taste bitter and unforgiving. 

‘Even after that.’ Her fingers loosen a little on the frayed cloth of his robe. (The black has faded almost to grey with repeated cleaning charms. It seems fitting. He’s Severus the Grey, after all, and he’s never going to rise Gandalf-like from the ashes of his own inevitable destruction.)

‘Let it be, Evans.’ Severus disentangles himself from her hold. ‘Just—just let things be.’ He takes a step back, if only to feel the reassuringly solid stone under his boots.

She gives him a half-smile. ‘I’m not going to give up on you, you know.’ She tilts her head in the direction of the classroom. ‘Can we at least walk to class together?’

Severus takes a deep breath and follows her down the corridor into Slughorn’s dungeon, focusing on the intricate patterns etched into the ancient stone beneath his feet.

-end


End file.
